WSJ ME Thomson: Reporters will be judged on whether they break news

Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson sent the following memo — which signals that Dow Jones plans to compete more aggressively against Reuters, Bloomberg and AP — to all Journal and Dow Jones Newswire reporters on Thursday:

“There is no doubt that co-operation between Newswires and Journal journalists has improved markedly over the past year, but true fraternity remains more nascent than mature. Our structure must complement the needs of all Dow Jones readers and reflect the contemporary value of what is crudely called ‘content.’

“A breaking corporate, economic or political news story is of crucial value to our Newswires subscribers, who are being relentlessly wooed by less worthy competitors. Even a headstart of a few seconds is priceless for a commodities trader or a bond dealerÂ — that same story can be repurposed for a range of different audiences, but its value diminishes with the passing of time.

“Given that revenue reality, henceforth all Journal reporters will be judged, in significant part, by whether they break news for the Newswires. This is a fundamental shift in orientation which will also require a fundamental change in the inaptly named Speedy system.

“The Speedy was designed with a simple objective: the urgent dissemination of breaking news unearthed by WSJ reporters.Apart from being an important facet of the Newswires service, the system was intended to enhance the newspaper’s reputation as the world’s leading source of financial, business and general news.

“In the age of digitally compressed content, the Speedy should have been a defining advantage for Dow Jones — but, alas, too many of these items were written in a way which neither made sense to Newswires users nor maximized the value of the news they sought to convey.

“The system is in need of revolution, not reform. We must all think of ourselves as Dow Jones journalists and, at the least, have some comprehension of the life-cycle of a news story and its relative worth to our readers around the world. Not all content demands to be free and our content, in particular, has a value thatis sometimes better recognised by our readers than our journalists. That we have multiple opportunities to generate income from this content is in stark contrast to many other revenue-challenged news organizations, which have not sold their soul — they have merely given it away.

“With these objectives in mind, we are sendingSpeedy to the knackery and saddling up a successor, the URGENT. New nomenclature alone will not generate news, so there must also be basic changes of principle and practice at the Journal. A guide to the new system will be published next week and we are aiming to launch on April 15. In coming days, please raise any relevant issues with your bureau chief or editor. There is much angst-ridden, vacuous debate about the fate of American journalism — this is an important practical measure to secure the long-term future of journalists at Dow Jones.”

DJ Newswires has got to be under great pressure as their customer base — financial institutions and legacy media outlets (newspapers) — is melting like snowballs in July. Reuters and Bloomberg with their wires well financed by their terminal business are stronger competitors.

Act I of this drama was the $2.8 billion writedown in 2008 as the consumer side of DJ (WSJ) deteriorated. Act II will be the deterioration of the enterprise side.

That’s an awful lot of arrogance coming from a publication that’s becoming less and less relevant by the day. The reason Bloomberg is so successful isn’t just its business platform, it’s the content. Not only are they faster, but they are faster at getting full stories out with the same content and forward-looking perspective that takes the Journal all day to write.

Has anyone noticed how often Stephen Hayes appears on FOX News these days? He’s practically a nightly regular on “Greta” and often makes back-to-back appearances throughout the evening line-up. Clearly, Rupe wants to sqeeze every penny of value out of his well-paid assets on the Journal. Hayes is proving his worth, but his less personable and telegenic (by which I mean a sense of ease on camera, rather than looks, since WSJ’s talking heads are generally on the homely side, except for Brett Stephens who is a standout in that crowd) colleagues should probably dust off their resumes.

Salvatore: I think you’re right about the downsizing opportunity, but I see this more as a threat to the WSJ reporters, who aren’t necessarily wired to break news all the time. Thomson directly goes after the style and voice of the so-called “speedys” from the WSJ. Newswires writes in a more direct style. He’s basically giving the WSJ reporters a lot of rope to hang themselves. Those who adapt will stick around; those who don’t will cede their beats to their Newswires counterparts, who work for less, by the way.

This means WSJ reporters are now going to be required to get breaking news stories out just like DJ Newswires reporters do. No longer will they be able to sit on stories like they used to. WSJ reporters have excellent contacts and often break news. Now they’ll have to do it faster and will need to beat other wires and online competitors. They didn’t have to do this before.

About time. They seem finally to realize that news is not perspective. Readers want news. Can the commentary and leave the perspective to The Economist. Maybe I won’t have to drop my subscription to WSJ print edition after all.

Bloomberg is filled with ex WSJ people who are at war with themselves over whether to emphasize breaking news or enterprise. The Journal’s new mandate no doubt is already causing phenomenal heartburn and hand wringing at BB HQ on Lexington Avenue. BB will over-react, throwing everything they have at this problem. Bloomberg will undoubtedly prevail, but top managers will remorselessly inflict significant damage to their own editors and reporters in the process. That’s just how they roll.

I read the Journal, religiously for over twenty years, not for its breaking stories ,but for its well written,well researched pieces on issues that affected and impacted people lives. The Journal now is
an empty shell. Murdoch has taken a great paper and is making it into one of his other rags. Five years, he’ll sell it. Any takers.

I wonder whether Mr. Thomson knows his audience. Perhaps he does and I am not the target market. I enjoy in-depth feature reporting and investigation. I must be the kind of reader the Journal wants to sacrifice. To me, breaking news is almost a commodity these days. Why does the Journal want to join the commodity wars? I suppose if I get my business features from Portfolio, Vanity Fair, Fortune or the NY Observer, that would suit the WSJ just fine.

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